


They Met In The School Counsellor's Office

by Dorkangel



Category: Avengers (Marvel Movies), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Foster Family, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Child Neglect, Deaf Clint Barton, Elective Mute, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insecure Clint, Mute Bucky, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Nick Fury Knows All, Oneshot, Protective Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 09:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3128837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes is the school's rebel, and he never speaks, which got him referred quickly to Nick Fury, the school psychologist. Natasha Romanov is there too, for general messed-up-ness.<br/>And no one has ever, ever successfully ignored Natasha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Met In The School Counsellor's Office

They Met in the School Councillor's Office

"I know you." she said, voice soft and characteristically chilly. Her long, black nails tapped against the wall as she said it, and her face barely moved, apart from a bird-like head tilt to one side.  
Bucky snorted and raised one eyebrow in question, the piercing through it making itself felt as he did.  
"You're Bucky." stated the girl calmly. Her hair was long and red, curled perfectly around her shoulders, and her eyes were icy green. Unfeeling. You'd expect her to be one of the plastic, fake popular girls, with features like that, but she clearly wasn't. If she was then, a) she wouldn't be sat here, waiting for the school psychiatrist, and b) she wouldn't be wearing a plain black tank-top, black leather jacket, black skinny jeans, black boots, black spider earrings, and a black beanie. Apparently pink and patterned leggings were 'in'.  
"James Buchanan Barnes. Some of the kids call you 'Winter' because they think you're cold."  
No shit, Sherlock.  
"You just moved here. You act like you hate everyone."  
Yep.  
"You never speak."  
And there was the clincher. Well done, top marks, you get the prize. Who are you, anyway?  
As though she could read his mind, she tucked her hair behind her shoulders and leaned back, still looking at him.  
"My name is Natalia Alianovna Romanova, but it says Natasha Romanoff on the files, and it's Tasha, if you're interested. I'm in the year below you, and I live across the road from you."  
I don't really care, he thought. Stop talking to me.

A flicker of irritation darted behind the boy's eyes - what you could see of them, anyway, behind that unruly dark fringe - and Natasha felt like crowing in triumph. She could get a reaction out of anyone.  
He just kept staring blankly at the wall, though, like it had personally traumatised him. His blue eyes looked almost dead.  
"Your foster-father knows mine, you know."  
Phil had apparently been in the same class as Steve Rogers in high school, when Rogers was still essentially a blonde matchstick with an attitude problem, a grudge against bullies, and about a million different health issues.  
But his asthma, acne and allergies had cleared up, he'd had operations on his hearing and his sight, he'd started having enough to eat for probably the first time in his life, and he got a gym membership in addition to a growth spurt; and five foot nothing, ninety pounds Steve Rogers, had become six foot five, incredibly beefy Steve Rogers.  
His attitude problems went away too, once people stopped picking on him, although his problem with bullies didn't.  
Which is why, when he stopped beating up bad guys with the army, he starting fostering.  
Phil, Natasha reasoned, probably just liked the paperwork.  
But Bucky, who was draped over the plastic chair next to her like he was boneless, made her curious. He had longish black hair, tied back in a bun, and blue, blue eyes, and he was wearing a sweater with a skull on it under a jean jacket.  
They didn't look like they were his clothes, really. Steve had probably bought them for him. She wondered what had happened to him- but then again, people didn't tend to just manage to correctly guess what had happened to her or Clint.  
The door of the councillor's office slammed open, making them both jump slightly.  
The councillor himself made a game of terrifying the freshman, as well as the other teachers and anyone else who didn't have nerves of steel. He always wore a long leather coat, and he only had one eye, and he seemed to have forgotten what an indoor voice was.  
His name was Nick Fury, and Natasha thought he was awesome. Mainly because she was the only one he didn't scare, and so he respected her, but whatever.  
"Alright," he barked, running his one eye over the two of them. The other one (or, rather, lack of it) was hidden under an eyepatch that circled the length of his bald head. "Which one of you two fuckers is next?"  
"Hey, Nick." greeted Natasha peaceably. "That'd be me. Where's your last victim?"  
The teacher glared at her. "Don't get familiar with me, Romanoff. He climbed out the window."  
She nodded knowledgeably. "Ah. Clint."  
"Yeah, who else but Barton? Get in here, soldier."  
"My brother's not as dumb as he looks, you know." she intoned as she stood up to do as he said.  
"Shut your mouth," growled Fury. "I know that. Besides, no one could possibly be as dumb as your goddamn brother looks."  
The door slammed shut again behind them, and out of the corner of her eye, Natasha saw Bucky flinch again.  
"Usual mission agenda." explained Fury sharply, voice still sergeant-major loud. "We both know you're fucked up, but you have sufficient practice at acting like a normal person, so we'll ignore it as long as you want to. How's your dealing with the other citizens going?"  
She sat down in the office chair and propped her feet up on his desk, just to annoy him.  
"I'm sure you know that this isn't really an intelligence agency, Fury. In your heart of hearts."  
He snorted. "For a school, there's an alarming lack of 'intelligence'."  
She leaned forwards, eyes gleaming. "I want all the information you have on James Bucky Barnes."  
He put his head down and stared at her incredulously. "No."  
"Why not? I bet I could work out what's up with him better than you can."  
"He saw his parents die. There, that's all you're getting."  
"No, it's deeper than that." she insisted, semi-excited. When Clint had first started living with her and Phil, they had assumed he was disassociated with normal life after so long with the circus and no adult influences, but it was a lot more than that. There was always more.  
"Yeah, but that's all you're getting. How's your grades?"  
"Abysmal."  
"Give me an honest report, agent, or there'll be trouble."  
"Straight As. No A+s, for the sake of appearing to be at least slightly normal."  
"Good." He seemed proud of her. "You've come a long way from nearly killing that kid on your first day."  
He had it coming, as she had explained, at length. He was looking at her boobs.  
He opened her file - with some difficulty, as her boots were still firmly in his way - and flicked through, raising an eyebrow.  
"Although it does continue to amaze me that you broke one of Sam's fingers. Yesterday."  
She made a dismissive gesture. "It was an accident. We were thumb wrestling. Anyway, back to Barnes-"  
"He's none of your business, Tasha. So, if you were thumb wrestling, instead of actually wrestling, does that mean you've made a friend?"  
She pouted at him jokingly, finally pulling her legs off the desk and elegantly folding them.  
"Please, Nicky, I'm offended. I have plenty of friends."  
"Friends your own age, whom you aren't just manipulating?"  
She paused, counting them off on her fingers. There was no point lying to Fury, unless she really had to. He'd know.  
"...two. I have two friends. Three, if Sharon counts."  
Fury shrugged in sympathy. "She doesn't get you, but she tries. And then there's Clint, obviously, which I'm going to let slide even though he's a year younger than you. So, Sam?"  
Sam was pretty awesome, really. He was kind, thoughtful, didn't have a crush on her, knew how to deal with fucked-up-ness and epic mood-swings, and never spoke if he didn't have something meaningful to say. Of course, she said none of this out loud.  
"Sam's alright."  
Fury heard it anyway.  
"Yeah, he seems like the kind of kid you could deal with."  
"I want to deal with Bucky."  
"No."  
She leaned forward eagerly. If it was any other straight male teacher, she might have abused the privilege of being a hot sixteen year old with perfect skin and deliberately showed him her boobs, but a) Fury's sexual and romantic orientation was probably a national secret and b) This was Fury, it would never work.  
"Listen, you've had sessions with him before, right?"  
Fury sighed, but nodded reluctantly.  
"He ever said anything to you? Anything at all? A single word?"  
"No. Nothing, that's the point. He's an elective mute."  
"So, some weirdo things have happened. He's seventeen, maybe eighteen. Parents are dead. How?"  
"Get out."  
"Huh?"  
"You heard me, I'm done with you. Stop meddling, Natasha."  
She made an exasperated noise in her throat and surged to her feet, storming out.  
Adults.  
They never listen.

Bucky cringed instinctively at the sound and sensation of the door crashing open again, and immediately wished he hadn't. It was a stupid, weak, irrational thing to do.  
"Nicky says to come in." drawled the girl angrily, collecting her hair behind her in the way that some girls seemed to do when they were distracted. "He's being annoying short with everyone, just, like, a warning. He just had to deal with my brother, so... He's probably going to want to kill you."  
He closed his eyes and tried to ignore her, channelling into his usual pit of sleeplessness and exhaustion. But he'd actually managed to sleep a whole night last night, for the first time he could remember. No nightmares, no people shouting and screaming at each other, no nothing. He wasn't even actually tired.  
"Okay, Barnes, get in here."  
He stood up reluctantly, shoving his hands in his pockets and marching inside like he didn't think anything could touch him.  
The truth was so far away from that.  
"We've established you're not going to talk to me." continued Fury.  
Bucky didn't answer, focusing on some point behind Fury's head and waiting for the session to be over.  
"Not that you've established anything personally."  
I haven't said anything, he thought, and almost laughed.  
Fury caught the shift in the boy's expression and raised one eyebrow minutely. At least Bucky was listening this time.  
"How's your studies going?"  
Bucky didn't answer. He didn't even shrug.  
Fury scowled. "Well, this is getting nowhere. Slowly. Mind if I drink?"  
Bucky eyes slid slowly from empty space to the psychiatrist's face, unimpressed, as Fury pulled a flask out of his inside pocket and poured it into his coffee cup.  
"Getting along with the guy taking care of you?"  
At that, Bucky shrugged, still more focused on what was presumably either whiskey or vodka. Didn't really matter, so long as it was strong enough to numb the world. Maybe if Fury turned his back he could drink some...?  
Steve was actually the best guardian he'd ever had. He'd caught Bucky trying to run away once, the day after Bucky started living there, and pulled him physically back inside - not out of any cruel streak or whatever, just because Bucky was seventeen and strong and struggling, and it wasn't like Steve'd hurt him or anything - and didn't even do anything. If it had been Bucky's previous foster dad, he would have been locked up in his room, potentially for days, and if it had been his dad he would have been beaten up. But Steve just sat him down at the kitchen table, ignoring the way that he had gone limp and was just stumbling along, like a living rag doll, waiting for punishment. And then he asked him what was wrong, if he could do anything to help, said that there was hot chocolate in the cupboard and there was no need to ask for it, just stick it in the microwave.  
Yeah, he liked Steve. He could admit it like that, in his head. It wasn't like anyone could hear him. The guy was like a muscled teddy bear. Or a puppy, or something.  
"No comment?" asked Fury dryly, taking a drag from his drink and wincing at the taste. Bucky snorted, and then the door opened.  
"Um, Nick?" asked the woman at the door, Peggy, whom Bucky vaguely recognised as a receptionist. "Johann Schmidt stole Clint Barton's hearing aids, and Natasha Romanov has him in a headlock."  
Nick Fury sighed. "Somehow, I am not even surprised. Yeah, I'm on it."  
She nodded anxiously and disappeared, and Fury checked his watch before turning back to Bucky.  
"You can stay here until school ends, if you want. Not like you're going to learn anything on a Friday afternoon."  
Bucky nodded vaguely at him, eyes unfocusing again.  
Fury got up and walked away, and Bucky just turned off his brain for the next fifteen minutes.

He got the bus home, ignoring the fact that Tasha from earlier and a blonde boy in a purple hoodie sat opposite him. He kept hissing in her ear, both of them staring at him, and then wincing when she whispered back and adjusting the pieces of plastic in his ears desperately.  
That must be Barton, registered something in the back of Bucky's mind. Her brother? They don't look the same, and they don't share a last name.  
"Hi!" she called, and he rolled his eyes.  
"Told you he wouldn't talk to us." murmured the boy. "Just leave him alone, Tasha."  
"Fuck off." she murmured back, and he groaned.  
"I can barely hear you. Geez, I think Schmidt seriously fucked these up."  
"Let me see them."  
He took out his hearing aids, and Bucky stopped listening as they stopped talking about him.  
Maybe Natasha got the message, because she didn't talk to him again until the bus stopped with a jerk and she tapped him on the shoulder with a, "Hey, this is your stop as well as ours." and he followed them blindly off the bus.

Bucky waited until he had kicked the door shut behind him to close his eyes and lean his head back against a wall in relief. The not-talking was a coping mechanism, sure, but dealing with people was so _exhausting_.  
He stood up and went straight to the cupboard, successfully ignoring Steve as his foster father appeared at the entrance to the kitchen.  
"Making good on the hot chocolate offer?"  
Bucky shrugged noncommittally, despite the fact that he was very clearly pouring the powder into a mug and flicking the kettle on.  
"Nothing dramatic happened at school then?"  
He shook his head.  
"Meeting with the councillor go alright?"  
He nodded, and went to find a spoon. Steve had been a little freaked out by him at first - his silence and his blank face were intended partially as a scare tactic against others, that much was obvious even to Bucky's conscious mind, which was hazy and very clearly not in the driving seat most of the time - but then he'd gathered that Bucky was freaking out inside even more, and that he didn't mean any actual harm with all of his aggression and intimidation, and he'd got used to him, which was not an easy thing to do. The question asking had just become a habit, Bucky thought.  
Steve, who was leaning on the doorframe, opened his mouth to say something and was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. He blinked and turned to open it, glancing anxiously at Bucky as the teenager's shoulders went rigid.  
There was, in his opinion, only one person that this could be.  
"Hi, Mr. Rogers!"  
Natasha. Was she stalking him or something?!  
"Me and Bucky are in the same class, I was just wondering if I could borrow some notes?"  
Bucky's mind raced for a moment, looking at his bag, as Steve replied.  
"Hello, Natasha. Aren't you in the grade below him?"  
"Yeah, it's an optional class. Advanced math."  
Bucky _did_ take that class, and Natasha could very easily be on the register for it, even if she had never turned up. He looked for around for a way out of this- or, frankly, just any way in which he could be difficult. It was childish, but if she was playing dirty and getting Steve involved, he could play dirty back.

Steve smiled at Tasha as she slipped past him through the door and stood in the hall, waiting to be directed to Bucky.  
"How's Phil?" he asked amicably, messing with the dodgy lock on the door.  
"Phil's alright. Busy, as usual."  
"Yeah, I guess so. He works for...? Actually, I can't remember what-"  
His brow furrowed and Natasha bit her lip to keep from smiling. Steve had a heart of gold and the face of a continually perplexed puppy.  
"He's a civil servant." she explained. "Technically, a policeman, but not a cool one. He does the paperwork."  
"Oh, right. Well, Bucky's in the kitchen."  
She nodded and hurried over to it, suppressing what Clint referred to a her 'evil grin'. This plan was great: she possibly got herself into Steve's good books, and let Bucky know she was a hundred percent prepared to strike on home ground.  
Since Steve was behind her, she allowed herself a small, sly smile and walked over to where she could see Bucky, face completely expressionless, pull everything he had labelled 'Higher math' out of his backpack.  
He waited until she could see it and then, with absolutely nothing in his eyes, took a step over to the stove, where one of the gas rings was turned on, and set all of it on fire.  
A small gasp escaped Tasha's lips before she could stop it, and she covered her mouth, half-laughing in surprise.  
"James!" shouted Steve, jogging past them to flick off the gasp and run the water to wet a towel. Bucky didn't respond, other than to take a kind of swaying sidestep out of his way and keep up the intense eye contact with Natasha.  
"You win this one." she murmured, and flicked two fingers first at her eyes and then at his.  
He just scoffed and shouldered past her, heading towards his room.

**Author's Note:**

> Not continuing! Don't ask!


End file.
